PARIS – About 100 students from the Oxford Hills Middle School Team 4 were away from their classrooms for the morning on Feb. 2. They were visiting 46 local businesses learning what a day “at the office” would be like if they became an early childhood educator, graphic artist, policeman, chef, airplane mechanic and teacher.

This was the 12th year of the Middle School Job Shadow Program, giving students a chance to go into the community and work with an employee from any one of 60 businesses volunteering time for the program.

According to Maureen Howard, executive director of the Oxford Hills Community Education Exchange, the students fill out a survey checking off different careers that interest them. It then becomes her job to match the students’ interest with a job site.

Employers participating are in Norway, Paris and Oxford, making commuting time feasible as the students are at a site for about two hours.

Over the course of the year about 300 eighth-graders participate in the program. One of the goals is to increase student’s understanding of the education needed for the careers that match their interests. The program is coordinated through the Oxford Hills Community Education Exchange.

For more information about this and other programs of the Education Exchange, call Howard at 743-8972.